Tatum Atlas Bautista
Spoiler alert: We had a baby!… And at six-and-a-half weeks before our due date.
We named our little guy Tatum Atlas. He’s everything and more, and although he threw us for a loop by being born way earlier than expected, we’re so happy we didn’t end up having to wait for his arrival any longer. If I could sum up the last couple of weeks? A total trip. Never in our lives have we felt such a rollercoaster of emotions in such a short amount of time. We are emotionally, mentally and physically exhausted, and yet we wouldn’t trade all this new fatigue for anything in the world.
It all started early in the morning on Sunday, June 7th. I had gone to the washroom to pee just before going to bed, when I noticed some pink on the toilet paper and in the toilet bowl. My initial instinct was this might be my bloody show–we had briefly discussed it in our first prenatal class the week before. One thing we learned was that it could appear up to six weeks before you actually go into labour. Because our due date wasn’t until July 25th, I thought this would be the case for me, if this was in fact my bloody show. I didn’t want to stress out about it so I headed to bed, with a plan to call my midwife later in the day to give her a heads up. Throughout the day, I continued to see what appeared to be my bloody show. We slowly began to panic and started packing our hospital bags, while I called my midwife. At only 33 weeks gestation, she wasn’t convinced that it was my bloody show, but to be safe, she booked an ultrasound for me the following Monday afternoon, and moved up my pre-scheduled appointment with an OB-GYN to Tuesday morning. At both the ultrasound and OB-GYN appointment, nothing out of the ordinary came up and there were no concerns over the appearance of blood. The OB-GYN mentioned that it was normal at this stage in the third trimester, as it was probably a sign that my cervix was simply getting ready for labour over the coming weeks. I breathed a sigh of relief and happily shared the news with Brentley.
Fast forward to early morning the next day, Wednesday, June 10th. I woke up around 4 AM, with the immediate assumption my bladder was full yet again. As I slowly got up, I felt a gush of water starting to come out. I quickly shook Brentley awake then ran to the bathroom, leaving a trail of amniotic fluid on the way there. As I sat down on the toilet, more water gushed out. Brentley, not knowing what was happening, walked into the bathroom and I showed him my soaked underwear. We immediately called my midwife (another one on call this time) and told her what happened. Again, being at 33 weeks gestation, she was hoping I’d possibly mistaken the fluid for regular discharge and advised I try to go back to sleep, but promised to call in a few hours to check on me. The leaking didn’t stop. Brentley was frantically Googling more information on what was happening, while I called my parents to let them know that my water broke. We had Dougie and our car seat was still boxed at my parents’ house, so we knew that regardless of what was going to happen that day, we needed to drop by my parents’ place as soon as possible. After tidying up around the condo, I began feeling minor contractions. I took a quick shower then we headed off to my parents’. On the way, the contractions slowly became more painful. I was recording them using an app, although they never seemed consistent.
We arrived at my parents’ house around 6 AM, and Brentley and my dad immediately started assembling and setting up the car seat. My mom waited with me and my contractions became more and more intense. My midwife called to check up on me, and when I told her I was positive that it was my water that broke (also mentioning that I’d soaked through four maxi pads since our previous call), she told me to meet her at Scarborough General Hospital by 8 AM.
Once we got to the hospital, my midwife took me to the triage room while Brentley stayed in the waiting room. Since I was pre-term, my midwife had to transfer my care to an OB-GYN. Shortly after changing into a hospital gown, I met my OB-GYN, who seemed hopeful that we may be able to delay the delivery until a more ideal 36 or 37 weeks gestation, but also reassured me that 33 weeks would be manageable. In my head I was questioning how it would be possible not to give birth today, since my contractions had intensified and I was in so much pain. Moments later, a nurse came in to check on the baby’s heart rate and I mentioned I was having a contraction. She coached me through some breathing to help manage the pain, and about a minute later I felt another one and told her. Concerned, she mentioned to another nurse that I had two contractions in less than five minutes, and they both called the OB-GYN back to my triage bed.
To everyone’s surprise, I was already 7cm dilated (apparently I was in “silent” active labour), meaning this baby was definitely coming today! The OB-GYN also checked on the baby’s position, and unfortunately he was breech, so our only option was to deliver the baby via an emergency C-section. The next several minutes were a blur, as multiple nurses came in and out of the triage room, prepping me for surgery. Close to 10 AM, I was taken to the operating room, where I was injected with spinal anesthesia, laid down on the operating table and was then reunited with Brentley behind a blue curtain (I mentioned to the doctors that Brentley gets queasy with these sorts of things so we chose not to watch the C-section performed). Our baby Tatum was born just moments later at 10:20 AM, weighing in at a surprisingly healthy 6 lbs and measuring at 20 inches long, despite being born over six weeks premature. After a very brief bonding moment with mom and dad, Tatum was immediately taken to the NICU. Brentley followed a nurse there while I was taken to the recovery room. Once I began losing numbness in my legs, I was transferred to our own private room.
Brentley and I spent the next 48 hours in the hospital as I recovered from my surgery. We visited our baby boy in the NICU, specifically at each feeding so we’d also have a chance to hold him. When Friday morning came and we were officially discharged, we were overcome with sadness and guilt, knowing Tatum was stuck in the NICU, but not knowing when he was coming out. I cried as I said “bye” to him while he was asleep in his incubator, and I cried again when Brentley and I returned home. Even though Tatum already surpassed the weight minimum, there were a few other issues that he needed to work through, including jaundice, breathing and feeding. Brentley and I had been alternating hospital visits ever since we were discharged (due to COVID-19 restrictions, only one parent was allowed to visit the NICU each day). The first week was a bit rough, but he made huge improvements over the following week, being cleared of jaundice, continuously breathing and successfully bottle-feeding.
Tatum was officially discharged this morning. Bringing him home was such a surreal feeling. The wait to get him here was long and agonizing. There were times when we felt hopeless, just searching for answers and wondering if we were going to have to wait another month for him to leave the hospital. But we’ve seen how strong our baby boy is, and he managed to get cleared to go home before 36 weeks, which was quite a feat according to some of his nurses. We’re now a family of three under the same roof, and we’ve never been happier. Bring on the sleepless nights!
